Category

Have had ‘flu these last few days, despite a jab late in what is now last year. Have been working on two books meanwhile: finishing off the 80-page collective memoir for my father, and writing the first few chapters of the new book for Earthscan. Both going well. A sense of the calm before the storm as far as 2011 goes. Not sure what my New Year’s resolutions are or should be, though have a sense that catching up with myself should be somewhere in there, alongside taking better care of those around me. Rather think I’ve been there before.

Back earlier today from Little Rissington, where even the Volvo had trouble making it up the snowy slope to Hill House, where Elaine, Gaia, Hania and I had gone to celebrate my father Tim’s 90th birthday.

I began to show him the project we have been working on for a couple of months, an 80-page book created through Blurb and featuring the memories of his family, friends and colleagues over the decades. The title: TIM ELKINGTON: Super Man at 90–A Kaleidoscopic Portrait by Family & Friends. What a privilege, in so many ways, to be able to mark such a milestone.

On the way back through Oxford, we stopped in for a quick glass of Prosecco with Simon Beaufoy, who Gaia has been working with. (he has also been helping them with their writing projects.) Wonderful stopover. And now the holiday begins–and tomorrow I start writing my new book, hopefully. More anon.

My sister Tessa’s fiftieth birthday today: we spoke ahead of her flying to Abu Dhabi. This evening, 15-or-so of us were all trucked across to the Museum of Brands for the SustainAbility Christmas party this evening in a fleet of hybrid cabs, albeit in a sometimes near-solid-state traffic jam, caused by the wrong sort of snow. Joint session with Volans, though with others currently overseas (on holiday or, in Amy’s case, marooned by snow in Munich) Volans was down to Sam, Jacqueline (Lim) and I. Founded by Robert Opie, the museum is fascinating, a maze of displays of a total of 12,000 branded products that have been and are the environment for generations of Britons. Wonderful evening.

Flew in last night for a series of four sessions today with some 150 top executives of Tetra Pak. Great fun and subject to confidentiality agreement, but no great secret to say the area I did my sessions in was ‘floored’ in grass, which added an interesting fragrance to the proceedings.

On the flight back to London this evening, much delayed, we turned in over a spectacularly moonlit city, like something out of Avatar (like the eye in the second photo above), and the stewardess said ‘Wow!’ and came and sat beside me to watch the spectacle unfold.

Had an interesting email exchange from a speeding Mercedes crossing the Great Belt Bridge from Sweden to Denmark with Wu Qing, where she asked me how Elaine was. I replied that she was fine, but felt that I had my foot trapped on the accelerator of life. Wu Qing thought I literally had my foot stuck on the accelerator on the bridge. Happily, though, the Tetra Pak was my last major engagement of 2010 – and a quieter period now beckons, in which I start writing the new book.

It’s a short story, really, but it means problems with blogging. My MacBook Pro’s hard drive had been a little wobbly for a while, so I took it in to the Covent Garden Apple Store, where they said come back in 5 days – and, typically, the hard drive died after 4. Had lost everything, but it turned out that Sam had installed trial version Carbonite a few days before the catastrophe happened. After a couple of days of restoring files, it looks as though most things are back, though not yet music (which only works when you pay), PowerPoint presentations and photographs. Amazing how crippled one is when IT goes down in this way. Am pondering getting a Mac Air, one reason being that my back is a bit of a problem and doesn’t need the weight of a 15″ MacBook pro, but also because the Air’s flash memory may be a bit more robust (no moving parts) when transported in my bike’s panniers.

Across this evening to the Forum for the Future Christmas party, co-hosted by Interbrand in the Strand. A police helicopter hovered overhead, its spotlight beaming down towards Trafalgar Square, where the student protests were continuing – huge numbers had streamed past our office during the afternoon, down Southampton Row. very much struck by the fact that those who founded and led the environmental movement decades back are now moving into the mainstream, while a new angry generation is surfacing in the streets.

Spoke at a Royal College of Arts ‘Sustain Talks III’ session, with Michael Pawlyn and John Grant, moderated by Joe Kerr–and with a fascinating opening presentation by James Wignall. Very lively. Toss-up as to whether we spoke in the conference room or in the area that the students were occupying: in the end, we did it in the conference room, but had a drink with the occupying students afterwards.

We went to a private view in Shepherd’s Market of Alan Kingsbury’s paintings. Elaine had bought a painting called Rover on the Riva. Walked back to Hyde Park Corner, stopping to admire the memorials and general statuary.

Began to get tweets early this morning about the launch of the Gigaton Awards in Cancun, Mexico, for which I had been one of the judges.

The Gigaton Awards, developed by Sir Richard Branson’s Carbon War Room, are based on the Gigaton Throwdown project, launched in 2007, at the Clinton Global Initiative by Sunil Paul. The project encourages entrepreneurs, investors and policy makers to grow companies that stabilize the climate.

The Awards recognize individual companies across six major sectors for their leadership in emissions reductions and sustainable practices. A pool of 28 nominees across six major sectors was selected based on quantitative data indicating emissions reductions on an annual basis. The six sectors include consumer discretionary, consumer staples, energy, industrials, telecommunications and utilities.

The 2010 nominees included The Coca-Cola Company, Siemens Wind, Vodafone Group, Anheuser- Busch, Sony Corporation, GDF Suez, and 3M (see the attached appendix for a full list of nominees). Each winner goes home with an elegant Gigaton Award trophy, exclusively designed by renowned artist – Yves Behar. The winner of the top award, the Gigaton Prize, will keep the award until its handed off to next year’s winner.

Like so many things in my life, blog entries blur the boundaries between the personal and the professional. As explained on the Home Page, the website and the blog are part platform for ongoing projects, part autobiography, and part accountability mechanism.

Archives

Recent Posts

Twitter

About

John Elkington is a world authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development. He is currently Founding Partner and Executive Chairman of Volans, a future-focused business working at the intersection of the sustainability, entrepreneurship and innovation movements.